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More needs to be done with DUI enforcement

The Evening Sun

Posted:
04/24/2014 10:49:17 AM EDT

When Robert Landis, a 50-year-old construction worker from Chester County, drove drunk on April 26, 2013, crashing his pickup truck into a motorcycle and killing a 24-year-old volunteer firefighter, it was not his first DUI offense.

In fact, it was his eighth.

At the time of the crash a year ago, Landis was driving on a suspended license from a 2010 DUI conviction and had a blood alcohol level of .28 percent after admittedly downing 10 shots of whiskey and several beers at a bar.

His actions led to the death of Liam Crowley, a 24-year-old volunteer firefighter, leaving a family heartbroken, mother Diane Crowley wondering aloud how she will live her life “with Liam not here.”

On the same day Landis was pleading guilty in Chester County Court, a Berks man already serving jail time for a 2012 fatal DUI crash was in Montgomery County Court to admit driving drunk 26 days before the crash that put him behind bars.

Francis David Lynch, 43, of Hereford, was driving drunk at 11 p.m. April 4, 2012, when he crashed into a motorcycle and caused the death of Barry D. Good, a 57-year-old father of nine who was on his way to work at Merck, working a night shift so he could be at home during the day to help care for two children who have special needs.

Testimony revealed Lynch, who worked as a foreman for a construction business, had a prior DUI conviction in 2001 and was awaiting court action for the March 9 DUI arrest at the time of the fatal crash.

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These two incidents illustrate the failure of Pennsylvania law to keep repeat DUI offenders off the road, a situation that shatters lives with the deaths of innocent people.

According to the Pennsylvania DUI Association, there were 404 alcohol-related crash deaths in Pennsylvania in 2012, nearly one-third (31 percent) of the total crash deaths.

And while statistics on repeat DUIs as related to fatal crashes is scarce, anecdotal evidence from last week alone compels the conclusion that not enough is being done to keep repeat drunk drivers off the road.

In a press conference after Landis pleaded guilty, Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan expressed his disgust: “Seven times. Each one of those seven times that he (Landis) drove drunk, he was someone’s death waiting to happen,” said Hogan. “Every single time he got behind the wheel drunk, it was just sheer blind luck that he didn’t kill somebody. And on April 26, 2013, everybody’s luck ran out.”

Hogan is proposing changing state law to enact stiffer penalties for DUI offenders. Current law calls for a three-year minimum sentence on a homicide by vehicle while DUI charge. Hogan is suggesting a seven-year mandatory minimum sentence for each victim killed in a homicide by vehicle while DUI, with a maximum sentence of 10-20 years for each victim.

He is asking state Sen. John Rafferty, R-44th Dist., chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, to sponsor legislation.

The key is keeping repeat DUI offenders off the roads, and if it takes the threat and the reality of jail time to happen, so be it.

Deterring drunk drivers is critical to safety on our streets and highways so that fewer know the heartbreak of shattered lives that the Crowley and Good families know all too well. We urge Sen. Rafferty to promote Hogan’s proposal. Lives depend on it.